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Question:
I love the fexibility in Genesys' character creation so I pondered to go a step further and have my players decide on the class skills themselves and then let them define the "class" or "role" depending on the choice of skills. Would it be appropriate to have the players choose 8 "class" skills freely instead of building classes in advance with a pre defined set of class skills?

Answer:

Sure, I think that would be totally reasonable! As long as you sit down with your players beforehand and talk about what kind of game you’re going to run, I can’t see any problem with it.

Cheers,

Sam Stewart

COMBAT

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Question:

Can I only engage one single opponent at a time even if both stant next to each other in front of me or could I engage multiple opponents with one maneuver if they stand next to each other? How does blast work in that regard? Are opponents standing next to each other so that they could touch each other count as engaged?

Answer:

A lot of that is left up to common sense. If two opponents are standing right next to each other, then they are both at engaged range from each other. If you engage one, you would engage them both.

(There could be some exceptions to this, such as if your GM has one opponent protecting the other, and that opponent interposes themself between your character and the second opponent. In that case, your GM may rule you cannot engage the second character without dealing with the first one. In these cases, common sense and the ongoing narrative would dictate the relative positioning of the characters).

In the case of Blast, it is up to your GM as to whether opponents are standing close enough together to count as engaged with each other.

As described on page 106, engaged characters are roughly close enough that they could reach out and touch each other, so are within a few feet of one another.

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Rules Question:
Is it one maneuver to disengaged from all enemies or just one enemy? The Tumble talent (RoT page 88) specifies that you disengaged from all engaged enemies while the engaged/disengage description (CRB100) says you engage/disengage from AN opponent. I've been running it as one maneuver for all engaged enemies, but the new talent in RoT has me second guessing myself.

Answer:

You can disengage from everyone you’re currently engaged with as a maneuver. There are exceptions, of course, especially if your GM decides that you’re surrounded or hemmed in by your foes and can’t physically break free from them. But in general, disengaging gets your character away from everyone they’re currently engaged with.

The Tumble talent is useful because it allows you to disengage as an incidental.

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Question:

If a character is Grappled using the Grapple talent it would usually require them to spend two manoeuvres to disengage. If that character has the Tumble talent what options do they have?

1. Disengage as an Incidental, Tumble takes precedent.

2. Disengage as a Single Manoeuvre, the two talents nullify each other

3. It will always require two Manoeuvres, Grapple takes precedent.

Answer:

In this case, Grapple would take priority. While both talents create an exception to the normal rules for leaving a hostile engagement, Tumble does so by making an option available to the character, while Grapple dictates what that character “must” do.

Of course, as always, a GM might handle this situation differently if that is best for their game. I’m sure a player could convince me that their nimble character was able to tumble out of the way before the enemy could grab them, particularly if they used a Story Point to influence the narrative!

CRAFTING

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Rules Question:
I have a follow up questions about this reply: "An item can only be of one type of craftsmanship, so the effects would not stack. With the Improved effect of Signature Weapon, if you choose to “reveal” the weapon’s Ancient craftsmanship, the effects of Ancient craftsmanship replace the effects of the original craftsmanship."What happens if there is no hard point available for the Ancient Craftsmanship when they purchase Improved?

Answer Received:

In this case, the weapon would still reduce its number of hard points by one. Since attachments must occupy hard points, this could cause the weapon to lose an attachment, if there are no longer enough hard points to support it. (This is one reason a player might want to take the alternative for this upgrade and just add the Reinforced quality.)

Then again, Heroic Abilities are meant to reflect a character’s personal abilities and story, and each signature weapon should be as unique as its wielder! As a GM, I might discuss alternatives with the player in the context of the ongoing story.

DAMAGE AND HEALING

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Question:

In GENESYS, during structured time the Heal action is used "in place of a medicine check in order to remove damage and heal critical injuries." -- pg. 217. However, "any one character can only make one attempt to heal a particular critical injury per week of game time." -- pg. 61. But, when using Heal narratively "Healing magic can also affect targets multiple times per encounter." -- pg. 214 Does the Heal skill allow multiple checks to heal from critical injuries per week?

Answer:

I can understand your confusion, and I apologize for any lack of clarity there. Due to the innate limitations of healing magic (mainly, suffering 2 strain every time your character casts a spell), we intended for Heal to be cast multiple times per encounter (and thus, per week as well). This includes attempts to heal Critical Injuries.

Generally, you should find that the lesser Critical Injuries are better healed through the use of the Medicine skill (it doesn’t cost strain to use, and the difficulty is usually less). However, some truly horrific injuries are better handled through the magical healing arts. Likewise, a good doctor with some ranks in Surgeon is going to be able to heal a lot of wounds, but if the target is badly injured, a magic user may have an easier time healing them.

In the end, hopefully you find that your group can get by with either a magic user that can heal or a character with Medicine; but that both skills are handy to have around. You may even find that a priest character may want to invest in both!

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Rules Question:

Can a character drink a stamina elixir during a "complex social encounter" to replenish their strain threshold and thus stave off compromise or capitulation?

Answer Received:

They certainly can! How the other characters in the scene respond is another matter. (I imagine it’s considered poor form in some company.)

DICE MECHANICS

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Question:

When spending advantages on a roll, can we only use each option once? Specifically the "Recover 1 strain" option. In SWRPG the table made it clear you could choose that option more than once, but that verbiage is missing from the table in Genesys.

Answer:

We removed that qualifier because we felt that by specifying that strain loss and gain was the only thing that could be activated multiple times with Advantage, we were limiting some other options that could also be reasonably activated multiple times. Disarming an opponent, for example, could happen twice if your character has enough Advantage and/or Triumphs and your opponent has two weapons. So could gaining free maneuvers; provided your character didn’t exceed the two maneuver limitation.

By removing that qualifier, we give more flexibility to the GM to determine what is reasonable and what isn’t. A player may well want to heal four strain using four Advantage, and the GM is fine with that. However, if that same player wants to add four Boost dice to their ally’s next check, the GM is perfectly within their rights to say “that’s excessive. Come up with something else.”

(On the other hand, if the GM is running a horror-themed game where strain is a more precious commodity, maybe they don’t want their players able to heal more than one strain at a time!)

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Question:

Dangerous Driving maneuver. Rule as written, if a character want to make this maneuver with a big spaceship or air carrier, with silhouette 8, the difficulty will be 8 purple dices. Is this correct? It's not too hard? For a standard crew it will be impossible to steering the vehicle. Or maybe it's, like Star Wars, HALF the silhouette rounded up?

Answer:

As written, difficulties can’t go above Formidable (five Difficulty dice) so that’s where this difficulty would top out. (Technically, it could be considered Impossible, in which case you’d need to spend a Story Point to attempt it).

Formidable doesn’t seem too unreasonable if you’re talking about piloting a very large ship through incredibly tight coursework. After all, this check is only called for if you’re steering said ship into very dangerous terrain or trying to preform a very reckless maneuver with it!

However, if in the course of playing your game you find this to be a continuing problem, please don’t hesitate to let us know and we’ll take another look at the issue.

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Question:

Why did you choose the different mechanic for „Overide Security Program“? The system is usually very clean and uses the standard difficulty/opposition mechanic in most situation. Therefore, my expectation was that the rating of a Security Program is the difficulty to overcome it. However, it is not. Instead, the rating is the number of successes needed, which derivates from all other actions in Genesys. I‘d like to understand why, so that I better know the implications if I copy one or the other dice mechanic for my own usage.

Answer:

That’s a good question. We chose to design the Override Security program the way that we did for several reasons. One is that scaling successes (the more successes you get, the more effective your action is) is already a part in Genesys (most notably whenever you make a combat check). Although the structure here is slightly different, the core conceit is the same.

The second reason is that it creates additional design space for the future. Talents already exist that allow you to modify the difficulty of checks. By taking this approach, it allows us to open up new avenues for affecting your character’s ability to hack. It also means we can create Firewalls that are hard to get through (large numbers of successes required to ‘break’) but don’t have severe risks of complications if you fail. System defenders can take talents such Defensive Sysops that can increase the difficulty, and this way these talents don’t compound with an increased difficulty to create an impossible task.

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Question:

Hello! I was hoping you could clarify how buying and selling are supposed to work in both Star Wars and Genesys. If a PC wants to sell something he looted from a foe, and the sale is not a plot-critical moment, does this require one check or two? More specifically, does the PC need to make one Negotiation or Streetwise check versus the item's Rarity to find a buyer, and a second Negotiation or Streetwise check to haggle over the price with the merchant? Or is the first roll the only one required?

The rules on pp. 82–83 of the Genesys rulebook and pp. 157–58 of the Force and Destiny rulebook seem to imply that it's one roll versus a difficulty set by the item's Rarity, with uncanceled Successes increasing the sale price. But should it be two rolls? Roll 1, to find the buyer, Roll 2 to haggle over the price?

For one more level to this question, does the answer depend on the plot-critical-ness of the encounter? Haggling against a merchant makes selling into an opposed check, almost always opening the door to Despair. Is this an indicator that these sorts of opposed haggling sessions should be reserved for important plot moments, and not for simple looting and selling of enemy gear? Thanks for any clarification!

Answer:

The rules roll the “find a buyer” and the “sell the item” into a single check, which is why it becomes more difficult to sell rarer items (it’s harder to find a buyer with the kind of money/interest to afford the item in the first place).

However, you do have a good point. If the negotiations are plot critical, you can expand the encounter out into two parts. One to find a buyer (which can rely on Knowledge or Streetwise checks, or even social skill checks as your characters talk to their friends and find someone interested in making the purchase). The second would be to negotiate a price, at which point you could make an opposed Negotiation check instead of a set difficulty. Simply use the same resolution for successes!

GEAR

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Question:

On pg 144, for the Fantasy weapons table, I was able to mentally work through the creation of the Shield listed in Table II. 1-1.
However, my question is, how did you create the Sword in the same table? Since it has +3 damage, with a crit rating of 2, and the Defensive 1 seems like it would be much higher than 200. I realize costs are variable and there is a discount applied to items in Table II.1-1, but no matter what I seem to craft, I can't get the sword's cost to come close to what's listed.

Answer:

You’ll probably notice a similar problem with spears, maces, and other melee weapons. We accidentally omitted one line from our weapons pricing table, which is that melee and brawl weapon costs should be halved after all other calculations. This compensates them for the major limitation of not being able to be used at range.

This is something we have fixed in future printings, and will be addressing in our errata.

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Question:

I noticed in the Steampunk Setting Specific Gear that the Hand Cannon has no listed rarity. What would the official rarity of this weapon be?

Answer:

The Hand Cannon should have Rarity 5.

MAGIC

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Question:

In the new Genesys RPG, do magic casters pay an Advantage cost to activate additional effects they’ve already purchased for a spell with a difficulty increase to the spell? (e.g. If a character purchases the Blast, Fire, and Range upgrades for an attack spell, making the spell Daunting difficulty, must they then also pay Advantages to activate Burn and Blast?)

Answer:

That is correct.

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Question:

How can mind affecting spells like D&Ds Charm Person (makes target feeling friendly towards caster) or Suggestion (makes target feel the proposal of the caster sounds perfectly reasonable) or illusions (making target believe something to be real) be created? They do not seem to fit to any of the base spells.

Answer:

Unless you want to invent your own spells (which you, of course, are more than welcome to do!) I would recommend that you repurpose Curse and Conjure. Between pages 212 and 214 we discuss more narrative ways to use the various spells, and you may find some advice there on how to use Curse to create mind-effecting spells, and use Conjure to create illusions.

Both Charm Person and Suggestion are going to be used in a more narrative sense, as the way the NPC interprets these interactions is up to the GM.

For a spell like Suggestion, I would recommend making it Easy for minions and unimportant rivals, and Average for moderately important rivals. Nemeses should be Hard, and if I was the GM, I would certainly upgrade the check with a Story Point. Upgrades such as range or affecting multiple targets can be applied normally. You yourself have already described the effect!

Charm Person is a bit harder (since it governs an entire state of mind), so I would increase the difficulty by one from all the difficulties I just described for Suggestion. In both cases, I would recommend that in a narrative encounter, the effects last for five minutes or so, and in a structured encounter, they last for one round. The caster can maintain them with Concentration, of course.

For Illusions, I would just treat it as if you were summoning a creature. However, since it’s just an illusion, you could forgo the Summon Ally upgrade, and still have the illusions do whatever you want them to. After all, they wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone. Again, you can apply any other upgrades as normal.

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Question:

Does the empowered effect of the magic attack also influence the damage burn quality dealt? I was told that knowledge 5 provided,the burn damage is doubled up to 10 instead the usual 5 in this case. Is this true or does empower only apply to the initial damage?

Answer:

Empowered effectively increase’s the attack’s base damage, and the Burn quality deals the attack’s base damage again over subsequent rounds. So yes, it would affect the Burn quality’s damage.

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Question:

Genesys question: When using a staff to cast an attack spell with the Blast effect added on, does the +4 to base damage increase the damage from the blast effect. In other words, If the mage has a Knowledge of 3, would the blast do just the 3 damage or 7 (3 + 4 from the staff)?

Answer:

As written, the Blast damage would only be Successes plus ranks in the Blast quality. However, if you feel that Blast damage is a bit low, then it would be perfectly reasonable to apply the implement’s base damage as well. You could also change the Blast effect so that the Blast rating is equal to twice your character’s ranks in Knowledge (giving you a rating of 2-10). However, I would not do both!

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Question:

When using the concentrate manoeuvre, does that sustain one spell, or can one manoeuvre sustain multiple spells?

Answer:

The concentrate maneuver sustains one spell. You can perform multiple concentrate maneuvers to sustain multiple spells, within the maneuver limit.

Not as the rules are written, no. If you want to implement some sort of rule like that in your own setting, I might recommend only have concentration be broken if the character suffers a critical injury (since taking damage happens fairly often).

No. Not concentrating anymore break concentration. It's just a maneuver you choose to perform or not in order to sustain a spell that allows it

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Rules Question:
In a previous question about whether or not Ranged Defense was applicable against Magic Attacks it was stated that Magic Attacks were like Ranged attacks in that regard and that Ranged Defense does apply to the roll. Can you please explain what things effect a magic attack, is it all things that would affect ranged attacks, such as the penalties for 'Making Ranged Attacks At Engaged Targets' or 'Making Ranged Attacks While Engaged'? Does the Close Combat effect change the attack to a melee attack or just allow the ability to target an engaged opponent? How do talents affect the dice pool of a Magic Attack, such as Side Step, Defensive Stance, Dodge, etc..?

Answer:

In short, yes. A magic attack can be treated like any other ranged attack in most respects, which includes ranged defense and talents that defend against ranged attacks. As for the “close combat” upgrade, you can think of that more as the same difficulty increase you would see from using a Ranged (Light) weapon to target an engaged foe.

(Of course, if you want to narratively describe your attack as a flaming sword or ice spear, I’m sure your GM would be fine with the embellishment. They may even let you ignore Side Step or Ranged Defense as a reward for your creativity, but that’s-as always-something to resolve with your GM and up to their discretion, since it changes the rules as they are written.)

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Rules Question:
For the augment and curse spells, do you actually just add/remove an ability die or do you upgrade/downgrade your ability dice pool? The way it's worded makes it seem like you just add/remove a green proficiency die. But adding/subtracting ability dice aren't found anywhere else in the rulebook, and thus I assume it's supposed to be upgrade/downgrade. Thank you for your time!

Answer:
You are supposed to increase or decrease the ability of the check, which is essentially adding or removing a die, which is covered in the adding/removing dice step. However, in the case of Cursing specifically, if you only have Proficiency dice in your pool, you should replace a Proficiency die with an Ability die (effectively downgrading the check).

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Rules Question:
Can the Primal skill be used for a Heal (Resurrection) spell? Page 70 of the core rulebook says that Primal cannot be used to "raise or reanimate the dead," but in page 218, Resurrection is open to Primal. Which page is correct?

Answer Received:
“Raising or reanimating the dead” in this case refers to the necromantic practice of animating dead bodies in a grotesque parody of life, not restoring one’s comrades to full health from the cold embrace of the grave.
So yes, you can use Resurrection with Primal.

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Rules Question:

Hi! I got three questions about RoT rules.

1. First one is concerning a Curse Doom spell effect. It is written that you cannot touch dice showing Triumph or Dispair symbols. But can you change Proficiency or Challenge dice faces to show such symbols? For example, on Proficiency die I rolled two advantage symbols. Can I change it to the Triumph?

2. Second question is about Conjure spells. I got some trouble understanding the scope of this spell action. What type of creatures my players can summon? Using this spell can they summon everything that exists in Terrinoth? Even dwarf soldiers or human mages? Or can a two-handed weapon they Conjure be magical?

3. Last but not least, this question is connected with a previous one. Summoned creatures got statistics as described in the RoT books? Or should stats depend on Mages ranks in Knowledge (Lore)? Thanks in advance!

Answer:

Hi! In order…

Yes, you could change the facing on a die from an Advantage to a Triumph, or a Threat to a Despair.

You can only summon minions (or rivals with the additional effect), but the GM has the final say on what would be allowed here. Iin general any NPC listed as a minion (or rival with the additional effect) would usually be ok. Weapons would be mundane types, so no magic weapons (though a weapon appearing out of thin air would certainly appear magical to others!). You and your GM can create new versions of Conjure or new additional effects to summon more powerful allies or magical items too.

Summoned creatures would use their appropriate profile, yes. So a summoned Reanimate would use the profile from Realms of Terrinoth. Remember though that these aren’t the real thing—they are magically created simulacrum of that creature/item.

SKILLS

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Rules Question:
Does the Arcana skill cover general knowledge of all magic and its function, or only general knowledge of arcane magic and its function? How does this apply in Terrinoth, given the introduction of Knowledge (adventuring), Knowledge (forbidden), Knowledge (geography), and Knowledge (lore)?

Answer Received:
That really all depends on the specific setting and how the GM has decided magic works in their world, including what additional magic and knowledge skills are in use. Assuming just the three magic skills in the core rulebook, I would probably restrict Arcana to general knowledge of arcane magic, and primarily practical matters (after all, magic-using characters need ranks in Knowledge to get the most out of their spell effects!).
In the case of a game using Realms of Terrinoth, I would use Arcana primarily for the actual practice of arcane magic and the fundamentals required for it. For most checks involving knowledge about arcane magic, I would use Lore or Forbidden (depending on whether the matter in question is, well, forbidden).

SPECIES

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Question:

The species is not to be changed after creation according to the CRB. How is Lycanthropy and Vampirism in Genesys (or other similar changes) to be handled if chars start not afflicted, but gain those status in the course of the adventure? Is there something like a template to apply or should it be handled differently?

Answer:

Gaining lycanthropy and/or vampirism is an interesting, though tricky, story point to introduce, and you can approach it several different ways.

For lycanthropy, you could use the Mongrel rules for becoming a monster in the Steampunk section, but without the secondary ability that gives them some control over when and where they change into a monster. You could rule that when bit by a lycanthrope, a character has a to pass a Hard Resilience check or contract the disease themselves.

Vampirism is very different, of course, and depends on your setting and source. One idea might be to apply a rule that vampires do not heal strain through natural rest or at the end of encounters, but only do so when they drink someone’s blood. You could then give them benefits such as faster wound regeneration, greater Brawn, and other benefits that match the vampires of lore. A sunlight allergy would also be appropriate. Perhaps, like lycanthropy, vampirism could be passed through bites and failing Resilience checks.

In any case, hopefully this is helpful enough to get you started! Whatever you come up with, I encourage you to test it out, and not be afraid to adjust it slightly depending on your feedback.

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Question:

How would you manage vulnerabilities of adversaries to certain elements like for example the vulnerability of Trolls to fire? Would a magic attack spell have to have the Fire effect? Or would it suffice to mention the spell being a fire spell without utilising the fire effect? And what about other elements of attack like acid for example, which isn't mentioned as an effect?

Answer:

That depends entirely on you and your preferences. Both options work well (although if you want to do the former, you may need to design an “acid” effect. Honestly, Burn could describe acid just as well as fire). However, my only suggestion is to be consistent. If you want effects to counter regeneration be narrative, then let them all be narrative. If you want them to be upgrades that increase a spell’s difficulty, then make sure all of the counters require an increase to the difficulty of the spell.

TALENTS

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Question:

Page 73, under the Knack for It talent, questions: First, it says the first purchase you select one skill, and subsequent purchases you select 2 skills; this seems unusual, so is it correct? Second question, when buying the talent for the first time, are combat and magic skills still restricted?

Answer:

To your first question; it is correct that the first purchase only applies to one skill. Due to the way ranked skills move “up” the talent pyramid, we found subsequent purchases of Knack for It rapidly dropped off in value. This serves to compensate for the increased XP costs.

To your second question, yes, combat and magic skills are restricted when purchasing the talent for the first time.

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Question:

The rules are not clear on this, but would it be a good idea to have careers and talents specific to a species? For example: Human>Knight>knight specific talents (almost like a specialisation tree). The setting I have has 4 very different species that each have a specific role in society, (mining, fishing, farming eg) and I thought having to a talents specific to careers or species might differentiate them further. Any guidelines for this?

Answer:

I’m afraid I don’t have any published guidelines for this idea. That being said, there’s nothing stopping you from limiting talents and careers to certain species in your own setting. I would recommend spelling this out very clearly for your players, then adding a bolded or italicized sentence at the beginning of the career description or talent description explaining that only species A, B, or C can purchase this.

Also, if you want to do this, I would recommend making sure that all of your species-specific options feel balanced with each other. This doesn’t just mean that each gets the same number of choices (although that is very important), but also that all of the choices feel equally interesting. They don’t have to all do the same thing, but they should all get players excited to try them. For that, you’re probably going to have to rely on playtesting with your group!

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Rules Question:Hi again guys, I was looking through the list of suggested talents in the RoT supplement and noticed Toughened missed the list, I assume its a mistake but I thought I had better ask anyway.

Answer:

Hi Richard! Yes, Toughened was missing; in general, any of the “use in any setting” talents from Genesys should be ok to use in Terrinoth.

TERRINOTH

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Rules Question:
Hi guys, I was wondering how you pronounce Ynfernael?

Answer:

Hi Richard! This is a great question and we had fun asking around the office on it. We generally pronounce it just as “Infernal” here but I’ve also heard some groups using “Yin-fernal” too.

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Rules Question:

This question is about the Improved upgrade of the Heroic Ability, Signature Weapon. If the Improved effect is cumulative for abilities, and the weapon starts off with a craftsmanship like Elven or Dwarven, if the player chooses Ancient, does it still retain the previously chosen craftsmanship? Thus becoming an Ancient Dwarven/Elven/Steel One Handed Weapon?

Answer:

An item can only be of one type of craftsmanship, so the effects would not stack. With the Improved effect of Signature Weapon, if you choose to “reveal” the weapon’s Ancient craftsmanship, the effects of Ancient craftsmanship replace the effects of the original craftsmanship.

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Rules Question:Hello! Just wanted to know, why Druidic Circlets and Magic Rings implements didn't make it to Realms of Terrinoth book (Table 2-8)? Thanks in advance!

Rules Answer:

Hi! Basically, we viewed these as not really part of the Terrinoth setting and we wanted to devote the space they would have taken in the book to other subjects. You’re free to adopt these into your games if desired, of course. You could even incorporate runebound shard magic into them as well to make some really unique items!

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Question:

Hello, There are several beautiful maps in the Realms of Terrinoth book - however there is nothing by which to judge scale. Is there any sort of scale available so that rough distances can be determined?

Answer:

Hi Josh! We imagine Terrinoth (page 139) around 250 leagues across at its widest point (roughly 900 miles). Travel time in days is likely more an issue, and our benchmark is 5 leagues per day on foot on average. It probably would take 7 or so weeks to cross it on foot (3-4 on horseback), and several days to travel from Tamalir to Greyhaven that way. This is something the GM can change, though, to best fit the game and the plot. One GM might have Terrinoth as big as the US, another the size of Europe, a third eh size of France. And all are perfectly fine.

We’re discussing this here and may add some guidance along these lines either in a reprint or online. It’s a great question and thanks for bringing it up Josh!

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Rules Question:
Realms of Terrinoth, page 91, the Conduit talent. Am I reading this right, that it's a manoeuvre to activate the talent than another manoeuvre to cast the spell? Or is it supposed to be 'Activation: Passive' and I can just spend that Story Point to cast as a manoeuvre and still do something else with my second manoeuvre?

Answer:
Hi Christopher! It should actually be Active (Incidental); you don’t need to spend a maneuver just to utilize Conduit, just a maneuver to do the magic action.

We’ll get this corrected in the next reprint. Thanks for emailing us about it and thanks also for playing!

VEHICLES

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Question:

These are questions a about a "forced move" in structured vehicle encounters described on page 221. The only explanation I see is in the pair of paragraphs (and the table) on that page. Does the pilot have to move X range bands away from their target? Or, because "a vehicle generally goes where the pilot wants it to" can, at two speed, a pilot move one range band away and one range band back? At speed 3-4, does the pilot need to spend one maneuver to, essentially, stay put? Should this be narratively described as either going so fast you can get right where you want (Speed 5) or going so slow that you're able to stay on top of your target (Speed 1-2). In the planetary scale, is there no difference in the amount of time it takes to move from strategic into medium range and from extreme into short range? At speed 5, for example, the ship is "forced" to move 4 range bands. Or, should the range bands for purposes of forced movement be considered without regard to relative positioning, somehow?

Answer:

Generally, the forced movement should be used narratively. Thus, if your character can present a good explanation for why their forced movement keeps them in one place (and your GM approves) then you can do so. An example might be a helicopter circling around a fixed point, or a race car driving in circles around an opponent. However, if it doesn’t make sense (“every turn I have my giant robot run around in a quick circle before returning to the fight!”) then you should either decelerate to stay in one place, or have your vehicle travel past the target due to speed and momentum.

As for planetary scale, planetary scale doesn’t change the scale of the range bands out to extreme; it just adds the “strategic” range band at the end.

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Question:

If I can follow up, to refine my second question, if forced to move X range bands, does it matter which range bands those are? Strategic to extreme is a really long way, but medium to short isn't quite so far. Does that make a difference to how many range bands the pilot is forced to move? Or does the pilot just count the number of bands regardless of which bands those happen to be?

Answer:

Rules as written, you would just move the bands no matter what. However, I agree that strategic to extreme is really far, as is extreme to long. Also, when dealing with range bands like extreme or strategic, they can encompass a sizable distance “within” the band. Simply put, although two things may be at strategic range to you, one might still be a bit closer than the other.

So if you want to count a move from strategic to extreme or extreme to long as moving “2” of your 4 range bands (and your GM agrees!) that would be very reasonable.

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Rules Question:
How can mind affecting spells like D&Ds Charm Person (makes target feeling friendly towards caster) or Suggestion (makes target feel the proposal of the caster sounds perfectly reasonable) or illusions (making target believe something to be real) be created? They do not seem to fit to any of the base spells.

Answer:

Hello Emmanuel,

Unless you want to invent your own spells (which you, of course, are more than welcome to do!) I would recommend that you repurpose Curse and Conjure. Between pages 212 and 214 we discuss more narrative ways to use the various spells, and you may find some advice there on how to use Curse to create mind-effecting spells, and use Conjure to create illusions.

Both Charm Person and Suggestion are going to be used in a more narrative sense, as the way the NPC interprets these interactions is up to the GM. For a spell like Suggestion, I would recommend making it Easy for minions and unimportant rivals, and Average for moderately important rivals. Nemeses should be Hard, and if I was the GM, I would certainly upgrade the check with a Story Point. Upgrades such as range or affecting multiple targets can be applied normally. You yourself have already described the effect!

Charm Person is a bit harder (since it governs an entire state of mind), so I would increase the difficulty by one from all the difficulties I just described for Suggestion. In both cases, I would recommend that in a narrative encounter, the effects last for five minutes or so, and in a structured encounter, they last for one round. The caster can maintain them with Concentration, of course.

For Illusions, I would just treat it as if you were summoning a creature. However, since it’s just an illusion, you could forgo the Summon Ally upgrade, and still have the illusions do whatever you want them to. After all, they wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone. Again, you can apply any other upgrades as normal.

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Page 73, under the Knack for It talent, questions: First, it says the first purchase you select one skill, and subsequent purchases you select 2 skills; this seems unusual, so is it correct? Second question, when buying the talent for the first time, are combat and magic skills still restricted?

To your first question; it is correct that the first purchase only applies to one skill. Due to the way ranked skills move “up” the talent pyramid, we found subsequent purchases of Knack for It rapidly dropped off in value. This serves to compensate for the increased XP costs.

To your second question, yes, combat and magic skills are restricted when purchasing the talent for the first time.

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Rules Question:
The species is not to be changed after creation according to the CRB. How is Lycanthropy and Vampirism in Genesys (or other similar changes) to be handled if chars start not afflicted, but gain those status in the course of the adventure? Is there something like a template to apply or should it be handled differently?

Gaining lycanthropy and/or vampirism is an interesting, though tricky, story point to introduce, and you can approach it several different ways.

For lycanthropy, you could use the Mongrel rules for becoming a monster in the Steampunk section, but without the secondary ability that gives them some control over when and where they change into a monster. You could rule that when bit by a lycanthrope, a character has a to pass a Hard Resilience check or contract the disease themselves.

Vampirism is very different, of course, and depends on your setting and source. One idea might be to apply a rule that vampires do not heal strain through natural rest or at the end of encounters, but only do so when they drink someone’s blood. You could then give them benefits such as faster wound regeneration, greater Brawn, and other benefits that match the vampires of lore. A sunlight allergy would also be appropriate. Perhaps, like lycanthropy, vampirism could be passed through bites and failing Resilience checks.

In any case, hopefully this is helpful enough to get you started! Whatever you come up with, I encourage you to test it out, and not be afraid to adjust it slightly depending on your feedback.

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Rules Question:
How would you manage vulnerabilities of adversaries to certain elements like for example the vulnerability of Trolls to fire? Would a magic attack spell have to have the Fire effect? Or would it suffice to mention the spell being a fire spell without utilising the fire effect? And what about other elements of attack like acid for example, which isn't mentioned as an effect?

That depends entirely on you and your preferences. Both options work well (although if you want to do the former, you may need to design an “acid” effect. Honestly, Burn could describe acid just as well as fire). However, my only suggestion is to be consistent. If you want effects to counter regeneration be narrative, then let them all be narrative. If you want them to be upgrades that increase a spell’s difficulty, then make sure all of the counters require an increase to the difficulty of the spell.

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Rules Question:
Does the empowered effect of the magic attack also influence the damage burn quality dealt? I was told that knowledge 5 provided,the burn damage is doubled up to 10 instead the usual 5 in this case. Is this true or does empower only apply to the initial damage?

Empowered effectively increase’s the attack’s base damage, and the Burn quality deals the attack’s base damage again over subsequent rounds. So yes, it would affect the Burn quality’s damage.

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Rules Question:
When spending advantages on a roll, can we only use each option once? Specifically the "Recover 1 strain" option. In SWRPG the table made it clear you could choose that option more than once, but that verbiage is missing from the table in Genesys.

Answer:
We removed that qualifier because we felt that by specifying that strain loss and gain was the only thing that could be activated multiple times with Advantage, we were limiting some other options that could also be reasonably activated multiple times. Disarming an opponent, for example, could happen twice if your character has enough Advantage and/or Triumphs and your opponent has two weapons. So could gaining free maneuvers; provided your character didn’t exceed the two maneuver limitation.

By removing that qualifier, we give more flexibility to the GM to determine what is reasonable and what isn’t. A player may well want to heal four strain using four Advantage, and the GM is fine with that. However, if that same player wants to add four Boost dice to their ally’s next check, the GM is perfectly within their rights to say “that’s excessive. Come up with something else.”

(On the other hand, if the GM is running a horror-themed game where strain is a more precious commodity, maybe they don’t want their players able to heal more than one strain at a time!)

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The Knack for It question is very interesting to me, mostly since I read it as it can never apply to Combat or Magic. That makes at least the second tier investment of it very valuable for Casters who want to wear armor or the like.

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The Knack for It question is very interesting to me, mostly since I read it as it can never apply to Combat or Magic. That makes at least the second tier investment of it very valuable for Casters who want to wear armor or the like.

Not necessarily how I interpreted it. I was asking if the restriction also applied to the first purchase (I just didn't phrase it that way). The reason I asked is because the qualifier is in the second paragraph, where it talks about subsequent purchases. I think the final answer is "no, you cannot use Knack for It with combat/magic skills at all."

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Not necessarily how I interpreted it. I was asking if the restriction also applied to the first purchase (I just didn't phrase it that way). The reason I asked is because the qualifier is in the second paragraph, where it talks about subsequent purchases. I think the final answer is "no, you cannot use Knack for It with combat/magic skills at all."

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Question:
Genesys question: When using a staff to cast an attack spell with the Blast effect added on, does the +4 to base damage increase the damage from the blast effect. In other words, If the mage has a Knowledge of 3, would the blast do just the 3 damage or 7 (3 + 4 from the staff)? Thank you for your time. Loving the game.

Answer:

Hello ArtWend,

As written, the Blast damage would only be Successes plus ranks in the Blast quality. However, if you feel that Blast damage is a bit low, then it would be perfectly reasonable to apply the implement’s base damage as well. You could also change the Blast effect so that the Blast rating is equal to twice your character’s ranks in Knowledge (giving you a rating of 2-10). However, I would not do both!

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Rules Question:
In GENESYS, during structured time the Heal action is used "in place of a medicine check in order to remove damage and heal critical injuries." -- pg. 217. However, "any one character can only make one attempt to heal a particular critical injury per week of game time." -- pg. 61. But, when using Heal narratively "Healing magic can also affect targets multiple times per encounter." -- pg. 214 Does the Heal skill allow multiple checks to heal from critical injuries per week?

Hello FortyFaced,

I can understand your confusion, and I apologize for any lack of clarity there. Due to the innate limitations of healing magic (mainly, suffering 2 strain every time your character casts a spell), we intended for Heal to be cast multiple times per encounter (and thus, per week as well). This includes attempts to heal Critical Injuries.

Generally, you should find that the lesser Critical Injuries are better healed through the use of the Medicine skill (it doesn’t cost strain to use, and the difficulty is usually less). However, some truly horrific injuries are better handled through the magical healing arts. Likewise, a good doctor with some ranks in Surgeon is going to be able to heal a lot of wounds, but if the target is badly injured, a magic user may have an easier time healing them.

In the end, hopefully you find that your group can get by with either a magic user that can heal or a character with Medicine; but that both skills are handy to have around. You may even find that a priest character may want to invest in both!

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In the new Genesys RPG, do magic casters pay an Advantage cost to activate additional effects they’ve already purchased for a spell with a difficulty increase to the spell? (e.g. If a character purchases the Blast, Fire, and Range upgrades for an attack spell, making the spell Daunting difficulty, must they then also pay Advantages to activate Burn and Blast?)

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Rules Question:
These are questions a about a "forced move" in structured vehicle encounters described on page 221. The only explanation I see is in the pair of paragraphs (and the table) on that page. Does the pilot have to move X range bands away from their target? Or, because "a vehicle generally goes where the pilot wants it to" can, at two speed, a pilot move one range band away and one range band back? At speed 3-4, does the pilot need to spend one maneuver to, essentially, stay put? Should this be narratively described as either going so fast you can get right where you want (Speed 5) or going so slow that you're able to stay on top of your target (Speed 1-2). In the planetary scale, is there no difference in the amount of time it takes to move from strategic into medium range and from extreme into short range? At speed 5, for example, the ship is "forced" to move 4 range bands. Or, should the range bands for purposes of forced movement be considered without regard to relative positioning, somehow?

Hi FortyFaced,

Generally, the forced movement should be used narratively. Thus, if your character can present a good explanation for why their forced movement keeps them in one place (and your GM approves) then you can do so. An example might be a helicopter circling around a fixed point, or a race car driving in circles around an opponent. However, if it doesn’t make sense (“every turn I have my giant robot run around in a quick circle before returning to the fight!”) then you should either decelerate to stay in one place, or have your vehicle travel past the target due to speed and momentum.

As for planetary scale, planetary scale doesn’t change the scale of the range bands out to extreme; it just adds the “strategic” range band at the end.

I hope that helps! If this brings up any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Sam Stewart

RPG Manager

Fantasy Flight Games

Hi Sam,

If I can follow up, to refine my second question, if forced to move X range bands, does it matter which range bands those are? Strategic to extreme is a really long way, but medium to short isn't quite so far. Does that make a difference to how many range bands the pilot is forced to move? Or does the pilot just count the number of bands regardless of which bands those happen to be?

Hi FortyFaced,

Rules as written, you would just move the bands no matter what. However, I agree that strategic to extreme is really far, as is extreme to long. Also, when dealing with range bands like extreme or strategic, they can encompass a sizable distance “within” the band. Simply put, although two things may be at strategic range to you, one might still be a bit closer than the other.

So if you want to count a move from strategic to extreme or extreme to long as moving “2” of your 4 range bands (and your GM agrees!) that would be very reasonable.

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Rules Question:
Just a basic question about engaging in melee. Can I only engage one single opponent at a time even if both stant next to each other in front of me or could I engage multiple opponents with one maneuver if they stand next to each other? How does blast work in that regard? Are opponents standing next to each other so that they could touch each other count as engaged?

Answer:

A lot of that is left up to common sense. If two opponents are standing right next to each other, then they are both at engaged range from each other. If you engage one, you would engage them both.

(There could be some exceptions to this, such as if your GM has one opponent protecting the other, and that opponent interposes themself between your character and the second opponent. In that case, your GM may rule you cannot engage the second character without dealing with the first one. In these cases, common sense and the ongoing narrative would dictate the relative positioning of the characters).

In the case of Blast, it is up to your GM as to whether opponents are standing close enough together to count as engaged with each other.

As described on page 106, engaged characters are roughly close enough that they could reach out and touch each other, so are within a few feet of one another.

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Rules Question:
The rules are not clear on this, but would it be a good idea to have careers and talents specific to a species? For example: Human>Knight>knight specific talents (almost like a specialisation tree). The setting I have has 4 very different species that each have a specific role in society, (mining, fishing, farming eg) and I thought having to a talents specific to careers or species might differentiate them further. Any guidelines for this?

Hi Johnny,

I’m afraid I don’t have any published guidelines for this idea. That being said, there’s nothing stopping you from limiting talents and careers to certain species in your own setting. I would recommend spelling this out very clearly for your players, then adding a bolded or italicized sentence at the beginning of the career description or talent description explaining that only species A, B, or C can purchase this.

Also, if you want to do this, I would recommend making sure that all of your species-specific options feel balanced with each other. This doesn’t just mean that each gets the same number of choices (although that is very important), but also that all of the choices feel equally interesting. They don’t have to all do the same thing, but they should all get players excited to try them. For that, you’re probably going to have to rely on playtesting with your group!

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Not as the rules are written, no. If you want to implement some sort of rule like that in your own setting, I might recommend only have concentration be broken if the character suffers a critical injury (since taking damage happens fairly often).

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Dangerous Driving maneuver. Rule as written, if a character want to make this maneuver with a big spaceship or air carrier, with silhouette 8, the difficulty will be 8 purple dices. Is this correct? It's not too hard? For a standard crew it will be impossible to steering the vehicle. Or maybe it's, like Star Wars, HALF the silhouette rounded up?

Answer

As written, difficulties can’t go above Formidable (five Difficulty dice) so that’s where this difficulty would top out. (Technically, it could be considered Impossible, in which case you’d need to spend a Story Point to attempt it).

Formidable doesn’t seem too unreasonable if you’re talking about piloting a very large ship through incredibly tight coursework. After all, this check is only called for if you’re steering said ship into very dangerous terrain or trying to preform a very reckless maneuver with it!

However, if in the course of playing your game you find this to be a continuing problem, please don’t hesitate to let us know and we’ll take another look at the issue.

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My question is when you have an NPC attacking a PC, is how do you decide when to add Challenge dice (red dice ) to the check, outside of using story point/destiny point . This is same thing I having issue decided when to add red dice to the dice pool.